HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Tears On Tape – HIM
In response to the prevalence of knuckleheaded nu metal at the turn of the century, with its sportswear aesthetic and macho posturing, something entirely different emerged from the shadows for those who felt underserved by the POWERMAN 5000s and TAPROOTs of the time. In the UK, the movement was spearheaded by the arrival of THE RASMUS who found crossover success with single In The Shadows and its accompanying album Dead Letters (2003). They were proudly influenced by pop, goth, melancholia, poetry, and gave fans of rock music permission to listen to their deep and tortured souls, after a period of being encouraged to just break stuff.
But the spotlight – or should that be dark light – passed quickly from THE RASMUS to HIM, who became poster boys for the scene almost overnight. One day, The Funeral Of Hearts was on Kerrang; the next, their greatest hits collection And Love Said No (2004) was available in Woolworths. Armed with a striking singer, a logo soon to be tattooed on the inside of millions of wrists, and constant endorsements from Jackass star Bam Margera, HIM shot up to the stratosphere.
This short-lived moment for mainstream acceptance of melodramatic goth rock coincided with the release of some other notable records, like EVANESCENCE’s Fallen (2003) and CRADLE OF FILTH’s Nymphetamine (2004), but it wasn’t long before metalcore came along and Roadrunner Records’ roster reigned supreme. Breakdowns triumphed over lovelorn lyricism.
The leaders of this scene inspired such uniquely strong devotion that bands continued to find success by keeping on keeping on. HIM would never release anything with the cultural cache of Love Metal (2003) and Dark Light (2005) ever again, but they sold out rooms worldwide with three more records before calling it a day.
Tears On Tape, their last, might be the most interesting of the bunch. Released four years before the band completed a farewell tour, it can be interpreted in two ways. Free from label pressure and financed by the band themselves, it is the sound of HIM rejuvenated, getting back to basics with a nuts and bolts record of the Finns doing what they do best. But when people reflect on their legacy, it barely features in the conversation, a sign that it did little to shape perceptions of the band for better or worse. Would many of the band’s fans pick Tears On Tape as their favourite record? Or choose one of its songs as the band’s best? Its biggest crime might be how little attention it was paid, and so it never had the opportunity to take on a life of its own like their earlier records did.
Reviews at the time were generous, and Dom Lawson, writing in the Guardian, awarded it four stars for featuring ‘cobwebbed melodies, lovelorn pathos and grubby metallic crunch’, comparing it favourably to Love Metal, with which it shares a producer, Hiili Hiilesmaa. Natasha Scharf said in Metal Hammer it was ‘the album HIM were destined to make’, with an even more generous nine-out-of-ten. Part of the praise seemed to come from relief: at least it is better than Screamworks: Love In Theory And Practice (2010), their previous offering which failed to connect with fans and which Metal Hammer put in last place when ranking their albums in 2023. There is also gratitude: drummer Mika Karppinen was told to stop playing by doctors to heal nerve damage caused by repetitive strain injury, and Scharf notes the band considered calling it a day before recording began. With their confidence shaken and the future of the band uncertain, it is a wonder Tears On Tape exists and that it contains some killer cuts worthy of more than being unceremoniously glossed over.
It is W.L.S.T.D., the record and the band’s last song proper, that hits hardest ten years later. HIM never shied away from some BLACK SABBATH worship, and it is on full display here as they play with the intensity of a band who have reached the encore of a tour’s final show. The song ends with “when love starts to die, so do I”, which takes on a whole new meaning now we know the band would split a few years later. Maybe it is for that reason it stands out as the record’s most significant moment, carrying the emotional weight of a swan song as they go out on one of their most metallic compositions.
When Love Metal and Dark Light came out, HIM were in the right place at the right, when a scene was longing for what they were selling. Revisiting Tears On Tape, there are enough similarities between it and the band’s most commercially successful moments to feel it would have fit right in had the scene not moved on. Love Without Tears has a chorus to rival any of their best, and I Will Be The End Of You’s riff recalls the propulsive Soul On Fire. It transitions between grooves even more gracefully than that more popular cut from a decade prior, highlighting their songwriting growth over the years.
None of these tracks have appeared on Ville Valo’s solo sets since he reemerged with his VV project, and only a handful were ever played during HIM‘s final tours. Their much publicised farewell shows were victory laps celebrating songs written long ago, so only one cut from Tears On Tape featured, and the same goes for Screamworks.
That tour was titled Bang & Whimper; a band that fewer and fewer people were paying attention to was saying goodbye. In 2017, the heights of Buried Alive By Love and Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly felt like ancient history, and so laying the band to rest in a healthy state was a respectful thing to do. But now that the HIM book is closed and their discography is complete, it reads as a remarkably consistent arc that was at the mercy of trends more than the band’s quality of output. While Screamworks is admittedly a bit wobbly, any song from any record proudly represents what HIM are all about. Hold up a Tears On Tape track alongside one from Razorblade Romance (1999) and both will put in an equally respectful showing. Looking at their work as a whole, what is left is a feeling of having taken HIM for granted in their latter days as they stuck to doing what they had always done so well.
Tears On Tape’s title track is an ode to legendary rock singers, and takes on a new poignancy on its tenth anniversary. Ville Valo said the song is about “the tears that our idols shed, the Ozzys and the Robert Plants, the people who put their emotions on tape back in the day, creating pieces of art that have kept us going all these years.” When Tears On Tape was re-released on vinyl in March 2024, it sold out from the band’s web store within days. Like Ozzy and Plant, Valo and HIM have become idols who fans have returned to in the years since they put the band to rest, in worship and in reverence. In doing so, Tears On Tape might finally be about to have its moment.
Tears On Tape was originally released on April 29, 2013 via DoubleCross
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